I wrote about getting past the short stories I was encouraged to read when I started writing, the accounts of unhappy upper middle-class Americans that left the people and places I knew invisible for the Influx Press/ Picador books/ Burley Fisher Books collaboration, #ShortStoriesForStrangeTimes. Also, I wrote about how stories by Grace Paley, Lucia Berlin, Abraham Rodriguez, Achy Obejas, and George Saunders made me feel like there was a place in the world for the fiction I wanted to write.
https://www.influxpress.com/blog/2020/6/2/the-american-short-story-and-me-linda-mannheim